CALL CENTERS (CENTRES) - Faculty of Industrial Engineering and ...

the market economy for realizing fairness to the job of the agent who works in a call center.
This method leads to a problem solving of the burnout, and it is one of the subjects in a call
center. Fair allocation is one of desirable allocation from viewpoint of individual rationality and
social welfare, because it is considered as an allocation, which fills envy-free and Pareto efficiency.
54. Holman, David, Olga Epitropaki and Sue Fernie. Understanding learning strategies in the workplace:
A factor analytic investigation, Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology,
74 (5), 2001, 675–681.
Abstract. The aim of this study was to validate a scale of learning strategies, as derived from the
educational literature, in an organizational context. Participants were 628 call center employees.
Both exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses suggested that a six-factor structure most
accurately represented the learning strategies examined. Specifically, three cognitive (extrinsic
work reflection, intrinsic work reflection, reproduction) and three behavioral strategies (interpersonal
help seeking, help seeking from written material, practical application) were found.
Keywords: Organizational behavior, Call centers, Learning, Occupational psychology, Statistical
analysis
55. Houlihan, Maeve. Managing to manage? Stories from the call centre floor, Journal of European
Industrial Training, 25, 2001, 208–220.
Abstract. Call centres are centralized operations where trained agents communicate with customers
via phone and using purpose-built information and communication technologies. The
normative model of call centre organization is that tasks are tightly prescribed, routinized,
scripted and monitored. What are the implications for managers and management? Drawing
on ethnographic fieldwork, this article focuses on middle management in call centres: how they
work, how they talk about their work and what alternatives they see. It describes an emerging
understanding of a manager who is as constrained as a worker under this mass customized
bureaucracy. Lack of strategic support and development, a powerfully normative focus on micromanagement
and deeply embedded goal conflicts combine to undermine these managers’ scope
to truly manage. Like the agents they supervise, call centre managers are engaged in a coping
project. In this context, they perform their identity with ambivalence: sometimes role embracing,
sometimes resisting.
Keywords: Telemarketing, Customer service management
(Appears also in Section IV.)
56. Lutz, P. Michel, Call centres in Germany: Employment market and qualification requirements,
Economic and Industrial Democracy, 22 (1), 2001, 143–153.
Abstract. In spite of a considerable number of existing studies on the call center market, there
has been up to now no reliable information about the number of call centers or about the number
of employees in these centers. The hierarchy in call centers tends to be rather flat. Shift work
is typical in call centers. The average age of a call center employee is around 40, but in large
call centers they are considerably younger. In Germany there is relatively little fluctuation in
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